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Show I Q ORIGIN OF "LOWER HOUSE". What Charles Dickens Wrote After At-( tending Session of the Law- j Making Body. ; What is now Statuary hall was occupied occu-pied by the house of representatives! from 1807 to 1844, when the capitol was In ruins. After the restoration of the building two or three years later the house convened again In this hall and continued its sessions there until the autumn of 1857, when the present: chamber in the south wing was taken possession of by the house of representatives. repre-sentatives. The drapery and furniture chairs, desks and sofas were removed re-moved from the old hall and the wooden wood-en floor was relaid with marble. The floor of the old chamber used to be four feet lower than It Is at present and was lower than the floor of the old senate, now occupied by the Unit ed States Supreme court. One author has 6aid that from this fact originated the habit of calling the house of representatives rep-resentatives Aie "lower house." Everybody Ev-erybody knows that the two branches of congress are co-ordinate .and that neither is higher or lower than the other, but the phrases "upper house'' and "lower house" persist. The houee met in this chamber when Charles Dickens made his first visit to the United States, and part of his uni popularity waB due to his description of the place and the habits of the members. Part of what he wrote was this: "It Is a beautiful and spacious halt of semicircular shape supported byi handsome pillars. One part of the gallery gal-lery 1b appropriated to ladies, where they sit in front rows, and come in and go out as at a play or concert. It is an elegant chamber to look at, but a singularly bad one for all pur- ' poses of hearing. The house is handsomely hand-somely carpeted, but the state to which these carpets are reduced by the universal disregard of the spittoons, spit-toons, with which every honorable member Is provided, and the extraordinary extraor-dinary Improvement on the pattern which has been squirted and dabbled upon It In every direction, does not admit of being described. It is etranga enough to see an honorable gentleman leaning back In his tilted chair with his legs on his desk before him, shaping shap-ing a convenient plug with his penknife, pen-knife, and when he is quite ready to use It, shoot the old one from his mouth as from a popgun and clap the new one In Its place. I was surprised to learn that Bteady old chewers of great experience are not always good marksmen." 1 JQ, .Yt'-ll "i'.'-V if'I" |
